Copying-paper.



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES FRANKLIN LESTER, OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA.

COPYING-PAPER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 686,620, dated November 12, 1901.

Application filed December 27, I900- $erial No. 41,267. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JAMES FRANKLIN LEs- TER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Atlanta, in the county of Fulton and State of Georgia, have invented new and useful Improvements in Copying-Paper, of which the following is a specification.

Tissue-paper designed solely for copying, writing, or analogous work must be tough and possessed of a fine and uniform texture to bear handling when damp or wet and to make a clear and sharp outline. Paper of this nature aforesaid fulfilling all the'conditions is costly.

This invention aims to provide a paper at about one-half the cost incident to the present manufacture and which will not be inferior to the highest grade in any particular as regards texture, toughness, and quality of producing clear and sharp copy.

In preparing this copyingpaper a material not heretofore deemed workable in a product of this character is utilized as the chief ingredient, in combination with a pulp produced in any of the usual ways from any good stock, the pulp being essential to the successful outcome of the operation. The material employed is china-grass or ramie.

In the manufacture of the tissue cop'y-paper suitable pulp-stocksuch, for instance, as that ordinarily made from ragsis combined with about half its weight of the selected grass, which, as stated, is china-grass or ramie. The china-grass is preferably cut into small pieces or comminuted, and after being united with the elements to form the pulp-stock the whole mass is digested in a digester of such character as will efiectually tumble the material and prevent it from packing, and is so treated with an alkali in an air-tight compartment and reduced to a pulp-stock. The stock is further treated to an emulsion of soap, which removes the gum from and softens the fiber of the grass. The prepared pulp is formed into a web or paper either by a hand-mold or the endless wirecloth of any paper-machine, according as the operation is intermittent or continuous. The web is finished in any of the usual ways.

While the sole purpose of the invention is to cheapen the manufacture of tissue copypaper, yet it is within the purview of the invention to adapt the method to the production of paper of any grade or quality requiring strength and close texture. I

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new is- As a new article of manufacture, tissue 

